All participants' lines are in listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question- and- answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Harry Konstantinou, CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us on the conference call today for Viva Leisure's FY 2022 full year financial results presentation. I'm joined today by our CFO, Kym Gallagher. This morning, various documents, including an investor presentation, were uploaded to the ASX, and we will be referring to our results presentation today. The presentation is being webcast on OpenBriefing.com and will be available for replay on the Viva Leisure investor website later today. The agenda for today's presentation will commence with some highlights of FY 2022, followed by Kym providing more detailed information on the actual financial result. Followed by a very quick, however, interesting update on the business recovery from COVID, and I'll finish with the FY 2023 outlook and what our team is focused on for the rest of the financial year.
The presentation also includes a brands and segment update commencing on page 28, as well as some additional information in the appendix commencing on page 35. I'm not proposing to go through the brands and segment update or the pages in the appendix during this webcast, as they are self-explanatory. However, if you have any questions, please ask them during the questions and answer session. At the back of the investor presentation on page 39 is also a reconciliation of the statutory profit and loss to the traditional AASB 16 numbers. As mentioned, following the completion of the presentations, we will have the opportunity for questions. A reminder that if you wish to ask questions, you will need to dial in as the questions cannot be asked via the webcast. I look forward to taking you on the Viva journey over the FY 2022 period.
This is Viva Leisure's fourth set of full-year results since listing on the ASX in June 2019. Unfortunately, this period was also affected by COVID restrictions in the first half. However, the business has bounced back extremely strongly for the second half. Where possible, we have provided both H1 and H2 comparisons as well as the full-year results so that our shareholders can understand the story of the two halves of the financial year. Moving to slide 4. You'll recall that earlier in the year, Viva provided guidance in relation to revenue for the half, EBITDA margin, June revenue run rate, as well as EBITDA margin target for June. I'm pleased to advise that we have exceeded the guidance provided, and the H2 result is an outstanding result in what followed a very difficult half one.
In terms of financial performance, noting that these figures are excluding AASB 16, revenue for the half year was AUD 56.8 million on guidance provided between AUD 54 million and AUD 56 million. EBITDA margin finished at 16.4% at the higher end of the range provided of between 15% and 17%. One of the key metrics we provided was an exit run rate of revenue for June 2022 at over AUD 10 million as part of our guidance. As previously advised to the ASX, we reached that AUD 10 million milestone one month earlier in May 2022, and again repeated that in June with AUD 10.2 million of revenue. In addition, we were able to return the business to an EBITDA margin for June in excess of 20% and achieved 20.2% for the month.
Again, exceeding the previously provided guidance. Our aim moving forward into FY 2023 is to maintain the 20% minimum monthly EBITDA margin, which is reflective of the business from pre-COVID and excluding lockdowns is achievable. With our regular recurring direct debit revenue stream and our annual revenue run rate, which I will advise in the next few slides, I'm excited about what FY 2023 will achieve. Moving to slide 5. Revenue for the full year was AUD 90.8 million, a record for the business and up 8.5% from FY 2021. This is an excellent result considering the business was unable to trade for a large portion of the first half of the year. More details on this in the COVID section of the presentation.
EBITDA for the half year was also a record for the business at AUD 9.3 million, and when combined with the first half loss, resulted in a full-year EBITDA of AUD 5.5 million. This result is 53.8% down from FY 2021. However, when taking into account the uninterrupted, strong second half result of AUD 9.3 million, this represents nearly 80% of the full-year FY 2021 EBITDA from just the half year, and this is extremely encouraging. Kym will have more details around this in his presentation. Moving to operational highlights. Corporate owned members were up to 159,546, and in fact, with pre-sold memberships scheduled to start in the days following the end of the financial year, we were in excess of 160,000 members.
Corporate membership growth was over 26% for the year, which is extremely encouraging and highlights the lifestyle nature of our business and the demand for members to get back into training in our facilities. Network members, which comprise both Viva corporate-owned members and Plus Fitness franchise members, was 320,161 as at thirtieth of June. Up nearly 22,000 members from the previous corresponding period. Utilization, which refers to Viva estimated maximum capacity within our portfolio, ended the year at 69.3%, up from 64.6% in the previous corresponding period. This is significant as any increase in utilization does not come with an increase in our essentially fixed cost base, and therefore a large portion of the additional revenue falls directly to EBITDA. Kym, again, will have more details on this data shortly.
Corporate-owned locations were 151, an increase of 36 from the previous corresponding period. Network locations totaled 334 at the end of the period. Moving to slide 6. Our annual revenue run rate, based on a day count of June 2022 revenue, now sits at AUD 124.5 million. Again, this is based on the June 2022 result of AUD 10.2 million revenue. An interesting statistic is that the business is now generating over AUD 341,000 of revenue each and every day, and this is increasing. Average revenue per week per member finished the year at AUD 14.59 ex GST, up from AUD 13.79 in the previous corresponding period, and is a record for the business. We expect this to be over AUD 15 per week in the coming months.
The next metric that we wish to highlight is the like-for-like membership growth. As mentioned in our market announcement, when taking into account operating locations pre-COVID in February 2020 and comparing the membership and revenue to June 2022, the business is actually trading at 3.1% above the February membership numbers for those like-for-like locations. What this tells us is that we do not need to wait for the business to recover from COVID, as we have already recovered 100% of our membership and our revenue, and have actually grown both in terms, both. For the first time, we are now also reporting system-wide sales for the franchise network. The network is running at AUD 95.5 million of system-wide sales. To be clear, this is an accumulation of the revenue within the franchise network and our franchisees.
This metric helps to measure the success and health of a franchise network, and we are proud that the Plus Fitness network is approaching AUD 100 million worth of annualized revenue, which is a significant milestone. I would now like to pass on to our CFO, Mr. Kym Gallagher, to run you through the financial results starting at slide 7.
Thank you, Harry, and good morning all. I'm on slide eight, as Harry mentioned. Firstly, the results presented throughout this presentation are predominantly based on ex-AASB 16 basis, which is also consistent with prior periods. Looking at the profit and loss. During the year, it was really a story of two halves, with the imposition of mandated lockdowns on our clubs and members heavily impacting the July to October period, which affected our financial results for the half. This led to a significant loss of revenue while many costs remained in place, and this resulted in a first half loss on the EBITDA line. It also slowed the rollout strategy to almost a standstill with only three new sites opening during the first half. This further led us to paying rent on sites in the second half, which had not yet opened.
The second half started slowly through January as Omicron made its presence felt and members feared quarantining during the holiday period. As you will see from the various charts later in this presentation and in the bi-monthly statistics we reported last week, the business is now performing better than pre-COVID numbers on a like-for-like basis. Despite the slow start to the half, the second half resulted in revenues of nearly AUD 57 million, normalized EBITDA for the half of AUD 9.3 million, and at a margin of 16.4% across that period. Also, as Harry mentioned, we exited June with record member and revenues, and we've returned to an operating margin that we haven't seen since FY 2020. In addition, our yield at around AUD 14.60 per member per week is also the highest in the group's history.
This has led us to a robust launching pad for FY 2023, and we will discuss this in more detail on the upcoming slides. I'm on slide nine. Monthly revenue is up 18% from June 2021 to June 2022, and up 52% on an annualized basis from the start of the financial year to the end. Annualized revenue is now approximately AUD 125 million based on the June 2022 exit rate, with our July management numbers continuing to climb. Harry will talk about some like-for-like performance of members and revenue from pre-COVID closures to where we sit at 30 June 2022, and the recovery is significant. This takes me to the next slide. I'm now on slide 10. This shows the growth in revenue from the month of December 2021 to June 2022, which is an overall growth of 22% in monthly revenue.
These are technically post-COVID impacted months, although there was still some overhang in December and January from Omicron. As you can see, the biggest step in the bridge is organic growth for pre-FY 2022 clubs, being approximately AUD 800,000 of the AUD 1.9 million growth in monthly revenue. I'm on slide 11. Combined with our record member numbers comes record average revenue per member per week. What this shows is that our average yield has increased by 8.2% since December. We imposed a member fee increase across many of our legacy clubs and members in April. That is, those clubs or members that hadn't seen increases for many months or even years in some instances. This has seen the yield increase by approximately 4.5% in the last quarter alone.
Note there is a slight decline in yield between May and June, and this is simply because we ran an end of financial year sale, which attracted over 3,000 new members. The member numbers are included, but they don't start paying fees until August. In other words, we would expect to see the average revenue per member exceed the AUD 15 mark shortly. I'm on slide 12. Note that we have grown our membership base by approximately 7% across the year on a combined group basis. This includes a recovery from a decline in total member base as at December, again, due to COVID impacts. The growth from December 2021 to June 2022 is actually 7.7%, demonstrating that members were very keen to return to our clubs.
In addition, the opening up of a new territory for corporate-owned clubs with the acquisition of seven WA Plus Fitness clubs has assisted in further diversification of the geographic spread of the group. Finally, Viva's corporate members are now equal in number to Plus Fitness franchise members, which is a great achievement. I'm on slide 13. This chart shows the bridge of Viva-owned club members between June 2021 and June 2022. It is worth noting that the same chart presented at the half-year results showed that there was actually a decline in the pre-2022 club members of 3,070 members between June 2021 and December 2021. This means that we've essentially gained 8,500 organic members in the second half from clubs owned prior to 1 July 2021.
This equates to 7% growth across the six months, simply in organic club membership. Voluntary member suspension numbers have also now returned to more normal levels at around 2%-2.5% of the membership base suspended at any time. Of the 23,000 or so acquired members, over 11,000 of these came from Plus Fitness acquisitions. I'm on slide 14. For those unfamiliar with our business, one of our key metrics is utilization. This is a measure of members per square meter of floor space at a facility used to monitor capacity. We assume that two members per square meter of health club floor space is our capacity and one member per square meter at the hiit republic and the boutiques.
The realistic long-term target of the group is an average of 75%-80% utilization, and we're currently sitting at 69.3%, which is the highest level we have seen since pre-COVID. For perspective, every 1% increase in utilization improves revenue by approximately AUD 1.8 million, with most of this falling to the EBITDA line. This also creates a significant improvement in the margin. In summary, we have record member numbers combined with record utilization and yield and an EBITDA margin back over 20% for the first time since the 2000 financial year. We now see this momentum continuing into FY 2023. I'm on slide 15.
A strong opening cash balance and a successful AUD 11.7 million capital raise in August last year during the uncertain COVID lockdown period provided us with a sufficient safety net at the time, but once we reopened, allowed us the opportunity to continue to pursue rollouts and acquisitions. Accordingly, we completed a total of 16 acquisitions for 25 clubs and rolled out 12 greenfield sites, which is reflected in the movements between property, plant, and equipment, right-of-use assets and lease liabilities and intangibles. One of the main acquisitions was the acquisition of the Rebalance Master franchise and 8 company-owned clubs. We're in the process of developing a franchise model around this, and Harry will talk about that later.
Debt has remained under control with a total of approximately AUD 20 million in senior debt, with revised facility terms, leaves us approximately AUD 22 million in available funding for further acquisitions. From a leverage perspective, net debt, being total debt less available cash, to the annualized June 2020 exit EBITDA run rate, is approximately 1.2 times. I'm now on slide 16. As I mentioned at the beginning, this was really a story of two halves, which is clear by the strong performance of operating cash flows for H2 compared to H1, with H2 nearly even eclipsing the full FY 2021 total. Similar comments to the balance sheet regarding the deployment of the opening cash balance and the inflows from the cap raise which we undertook in August 2021, which in particular, nearly AUD 20 million was invested in the 25 acquired clubs.
It's also worth noting that approximately AUD 12.3 million was invested in property, plant, and equipment, much of which was spent towards the 12 new greenfield sites that opened across the year. The lease payment line is simply the principal reduction of our lease liabilities, both equipment leases and rental leases, so it also includes a property rent payment component in that item. I'm on slide 17. Management have considered the impacts of inflation on the business. When preparing the FY 2023 budget, we've taken into consideration the increase in our key P&L costs based on known facts and estimates. We forecast a total of 5.8% increase in wages between June 2022 and June 2023 for existing sites.
This includes a 4.6% increase in wages plus on costs for our award staff, which accounted for approximately two-thirds of the total pay rise that took place on first of July. In addition to that, we have the non-award staff increases and legislated superannuation increases included in this number. Secondly, we've taken into account the rent schedule for the year and applied the fixed growth rates in the leases and estimated CPI rates for those sites, which are CPI-based increases. These account for approximately 18% of our total leases. We've estimated a 5.5% increase in total rental costs on a like-for-like basis, and those two expense items being wages and rent account for approximately 75% of our FY 2023 cost base.
Other expenses which account for a smaller component, the main ones being utilities, cleaning, license fees, marketing, et cetera, we've assumed a more aggressive and higher rate, which brings the estimated average expense increases on a like-for-like basis across FY 2023 at around 6.5%. Any savings against these estimates will lead to an improvement in margin. You'll note the increase in cost is mitigated with recent membership fee increases in both April and July, driving a higher yield. The combined increases in the revenue base is expected to be about 6.5% based on these increases in fees. Overall, we're expecting to stay above the 20% margin on average for the year.
Interest rates are also increasing, and this is somewhat mitigated by, with nearly half of our debt being the equipment lease finance on fixed rates for the duration of the leases. Equipment purchases and fit-out costs have gone up approximately 10% in the second half of FY 2022, and we've planned for this through our expanded CapEx budget. Thank you. I'll now hand back to Harry.
Thanks, Kym. Moving to slide 19. This is the slide which was presented in our half-year results, but has been updated to reflect the second half of the year. Essentially, it shows a story of two halves, as Kym mentioned. The first half of FY 2022 resulted in 52% of our locations being closed for the first four months. The second half of FY 2022 was much, much smoother, and 100% of locations were open, however, at times with minimal restrictions. While lockdowns have a direct impact on revenue, as we're unable to charge for membership, they also had a direct impact on our rollout program, as mentioned by Kym, as we had to put the brakes on new locations until we had certainty of reopening. Moving to slide 20.
As mentioned in my introduction, on a like-for-like basis, for locations open and operating in February 2020, pre-COVID, our membership now sits at 3.1% higher than it was. Essentially, this is a full recovery and then some. Revenue for the like-for-like clubs is even more impressive, indicating an 8.3% increase over the pre-COVID numbers. This puts to bed once and for all the recovery of our robust business post-COVID. We have recovered, and we are continuing to grow the business. The lifestyle nature of our business is well and truly an accurate representation of our industry, and no longer do our members consider a health club membership as a discretionary spend. People value their health, which is often considered the new wealth.
It is no longer about managing waistlines, but rather helping with overall wellness, mental health, and generally just feeling better, as well as other lifestyle benefits. Moving to slide 22, the FY 2023 outlook. Our aim today is not to provide guidance, but rather highlight the firepower, the initiatives, and the projects Viva is currently working on. As mentioned, we have 152 opened and operating corporate locations today. We have another 12 locations which have been secured, of which approximately 5 are in fit-out and will open in the coming months, with the remainder at pre-fit-out stage. A further 12 locations are currently under negotiation to acquire or secure leases. This number of 12 moves on a weekly basis as opportunities for acquisitions and greenfield locations are presented to the team.
Once an opportunity is presented, it goes through a review process before progressing and being considered an active opportunity. Moving to slide 23, the Chain Collective Group. Our investors will be aware of the establishment of the Chain Collective Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Viva Leisure. The Chain Collective Group is our franchising division, and its current mandate is, 1, the management and growth of the Plus Fitness division. Two, the preparation of hiit republic for franchising, which is still on track to commence by the end of calendar year 2022. And lastly, the preparation of the Rebalance Pilates and Yoga franchising, which is also to be ready for franchising by the end of this calendar year, however, possibly sooner. Last week, the Plus Fitness network held its annual franchisee conference, where 200 Plus Fitness franchisees attended.
At this conference, expressions of interest for both hiit republic and Rebalance Pilates were taken, and the interest is very strong, even in these early stages, for existing Plus Fitness franchisees to secure one of our new franchise offerings. Moving to slide 24, banking facilities. I'm pleased to advise that Viva has secured increased banking facilities with our primary bank, the Commonwealth Bank. These facilities include an increase in our senior loan facility, which is used for acquisitions, increasing from AUD 22.1 million to AUD 42.1 million, of which AUD 22 million is available for use as at 30 June. In addition to other banking facilities, Viva was able to secure an increase in our bank guarantee facility from AUD 6.5 million to AUD 16.5 million, of which AUD 9.8 million was available for use at 30 June.
This is significant as generally, bank guarantees are required on properties we lease, and with over 150 property leases, the cash required to guarantee lease obligations can be significant. This facility will allow us to continue to grow and secure new property leases. In addition to the significant increase in the senior loan facility, Viva was able to secure improved lending terms, including leverage ratios and drawdown ratios. Previously, Viva was limited to draw down 50% of an acquisition, with the remaining 50% to be paid by cash. Under the new terms of our facility, we are now able to borrow up to 70% of the purchase price of an acquisition, which results in having to use only 30% of cash to complete the acquisition.
This is a significant achievement and will allow our cash to be used for additional greenfield sites or additional acquisitions. With the available balance and the 70% ratio, Viva essentially has AUD 30 million of firepower for acquisitions. With our low debt and based on our target of 3x historic normalized EBITDA on acquisition, this facility will allow us to acquire approximately AUD 10 million worth of annualized EBITDA. Moving to slide 25, scrip acquisitions. The Viva board has approved the use of VVA scrip for acquisitions moving forward, subject to the same stringent acquisition criteria we have always used. This change allows Viva to preserve cash and aligns existing vendors with the Viva business by holding shares in the listed entity. Currently, 6 acquisitions have been agreed, and we're in the process of executing binding sale of business agreements.
As indicated in the table on this page, the combined EBITDA of these six acquisitions once completed will be AUD 1.485 million at an average multiple of 3.05x for a total acquisition price of AUD 4.525 million. I should confirm that these six acquisitions have been agreed but are not yet at the binding stage and are provided for informational purposes only. Viva will advise the market as these become binding. When taking into account 70% debt facilities, as advised on the previous slide, and the agreed scrip to be issued to the vendors, the cash required to complete these acquisitions will be approximately AUD 240,000. For reference, each individual vendor has agreed to accept between AUD 100,000 and AUD 300,000 dollars of scrip.
The scrip will be issued generally on a seven-day VWAP prior to settlement, which will obviously benefit Viva as the value of the scrip hopefully increases over time. Viva does have the option at its discretion to pay cash in place of scrip at settlement if it prefers. In summary, to acquire an additional 1.485 million of annualized EBITDA for a cash outlay of AUD 240,000 is strategically very attractive to management and the board and will ensure cash can be used for other initiatives and opportunities. Moving to slide 26, technology upgrades.
Our long-term investors who participated with us in the acquisition of the Plus Fitness business would be aware of our target to transition the Plus Fitness direct debit to Viva in order to, A, provide our franchisees with better processing rates, and B, to provide additional and alternative income to Viva as a direct debit provider. The Plus Fitness network system-wide revenue is circa AUD 100 million, as mentioned earlier. The current contract is due to expire in November 2022, and we expect Viva to transition from the existing Plus Fitness member management systems to the new Viva systems, known as The Hub, on or shortly after this date. This has meant that Viva's had to upgrade its member management systems to cater for franchisees. The systems were not designed initially to operate a franchise network.
The process of upgrading and essentially rewriting and updating the systems to the latest technology platforms is well underway. Viva expects to invest in excess of AUD 1 million this financial year, our largest investment in member management system upgrades ever. Together with these upgrades is the implementation of the Viva Pay direct debit processing system previously advised to the market. We expect to provide more information on this transition in the coming months. Moving to slide 27, our new micro gym concept. Our team has been working on a new staff-less, small footprint or micro gym concept. This concept is built around 150-200 sq m locations, targeting a low-cost, low-service model with 500-600 members, which is in excess of our regularly targeted two members per square meter.
These micro gyms are designed to be located in areas where traditional Viva Health Clubs with targets, which target circa 700 sq m or Plus Fitness health clubs, which target a minimum of 300 sq m , cannot be located. Management believes that locating smaller micro gyms in these key areas based on our data insights of members selecting locations close to their home and work, is a key driver to success of this concept. Viva also believes, as mentioned, that we can operate these locations with zero staff on-site. Similar to a vending machine, it is essentially a set and forget with one area manager monitoring up to 10 locations. Our target is to open at least one of these locations in FY 2023, possibly more. These micro gyms also come with additional location opportunities such as hotels, workplaces, et cetera.
The micro gyms will use existing Viva IT systems, including app access, to streamline the joining and access control requirements. We are very excited about the opportunities micro gyms offer, and we expect to provide more details in the coming months. As mentioned in my introduction, the aim today is not to go through the brands and segment update during this webcast. However, we are available for questions. This now ends our presentation. I'd like to highlight that fitness and physical activity is now even more front of mind after sustained periods of lockdowns and isolation over the past two years for the community. Fitness and health is a lifestyle for our members. It is part of their daily routine. From the data we are seeing, it's not affected by inflationary pressures.
This observation is also matched by our listed peers in the U.K. and the U.S. who are seeing the same data and increases in membership enrollment. Fitness for the community is no longer about waistlines and being beach body ready. It is about what happens inside our bodies. It is about mental health, about keeping your heart healthy, about feeling better with a clear mind and helping with stress. It is also about socializing and getting out. While previously it may have been common to visit the pub after work, what we are seeing is that our members would rather visit the gym after work to socialize and get a workout. The energy and feeling you get after each and every workout is what our members chase and enjoy, and this is what makes it a lifestyle spend and not a discretionary spend.
We need to also understand that a weekly gym membership is extremely affordable when compared to other costs in people's budgets. At an average of AUD 15-AUD 20 per week for a gym membership, this is less than most people spend on lunch each day. We would now like to open up for any questions.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speaker phone, please pick up your handset to ask your question. We have a first question from the line of Nick McGarrigle. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys.
Nick is from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
That's all right. Just thought I'd ask about the new debt facility. I think can you give us some background on how long you've been working on that and why you would not use that predominantly to fund acquisitions versus potentially issuing scrip to vendors?
Hi, Nick. Thanks for the question. Well, the debt facility is limited to 70% of an acquisition price. We were able to increase that from 50% to 70%. We have to use either scrip or equity or cash to complete that acquisition. You know, previously, we've always been using cash. We now have that scrip option, which we think is an attractive option moving forward to help us, you know, use cash for other things and preserve cash moving forward as well.
Just in terms of the six that you've got coming up, are they likely to be issued scrip as consideration, or is there sort of sufficient present cash and operating cash generation to fund those?
Yeah. The way we've been negotiating these acquisitions is that we offer two prices. We offer a straight cash price, which is at a lower multiple, somewhere between 2-2.5 times. We give them an option at a slightly higher multiple, averaging at 3.05 times with slightly more cash and some scrip. You know, that is the option that we've been going to the market with. All these vendors have accepted a scrip component, and that scrip ranges from AUD 100,000-AUD 300,000. The range of the acquisitions is somewhere between AUD 400,000-AUD 1.5 million each.
Yep. Just in terms of the acquisition pipeline and more generally commentary around the health of clubs, are you finding that the pipeline's getting fuller, or is the recovery post-COVID meaning that owners are happier to retain the gyms?
We get opportunities presented to us nearly on a daily basis. What we're seeing, and we've been a little bit delayed in accepting some of the acquisitions because we had eight acquisitions to complete before third of June. We also had a backlog of sites, as Kym mentioned, from half one, which were greenfield sites. We needed to get them operating and performing 'cause we had to delay the opening of those during the first half lockdown. We've sort of gone through that backlog of acquisitions, completed all those in WA that we had, opened up the sites that we had to delay, and now we're back in the market, and we've, yeah, agreed with six separate vendors for six acquisitions, including script.
We'll get these completed, and then we'll move to the next lot.
Just in terms of maybe a comment from Kym on current levels of cash generation, excluding CapEx, I suppose, just in terms of that June run rate, EBITDA looks good, but just some confirmation around what that means in terms of cash.
Yeah. What we're finding that we're generating at the moment, Nick, is somewhere between AUD 800,000 and AUD 1 million free cash flow a month, depending on when obviously the principal repayments fall. On average, for the next six months, we'd say it's probably around about AUD 800,000-900,000 in free cash flow per month.
Cool. I think, you've given some level of detail on sort of older clubs or existing clubs versus newer clubs. Can you make some comments around how greenfield sites are maturing versus how they may have been maturing pre-COVID? Specifically, I guess, are you seeing maturation similar outside of the ACT as you were seeing in the ACT?
Yeah, we can do that. Traditionally we've said that, you know, cash flow breakeven is about six weeks. What we're seeing with new greenfield locations, 'cause we're entering completely new markets that we haven't got existing sites on, essentially now. So the awareness is taking a little bit longer, so somewhere between eight and 10 weeks, which is still an excellent achievement in our opinion to get the cash flow breakeven, but it is longer than it was before. Where before we were infilling existing sites, like you mentioned in the ACT, we already had awareness. Now we're entering new markets like Bathurst and things like that, where we haven't had a presence before. So it's about getting awareness of our brand.
Yeah, we're still attractive breakeven numbers, which is good, and this is why we'll continue to roll out greenfield locations.
I think, Nick, where we struggled a little bit on the greenfield sites, you know, certainly heading into the second half, was the pre-marketing component. Normally, we would have a good, you know, 6 weeks to 2 months pre-marketing so that you could open the doors with, I don't know, call it 300-400 members on day one, which, you know, if breakeven membership's somewhere between 500-600 members, depending on the size of the site, you know, you'd expect to get those extra 150 or 200 members within the next 6 weeks through natural growth.
What we found, though, is that the pre-marketing campaigns that we were undertaking late last year, and certainly even in the first quarter of this year, people were more interested in getting through the Omicron, you know, isolation process and potentially getting back to their own gyms or their own lives before thinking about, you know, joining a new gym that's just opened on the corner. What we've seen in the fourth quarter of this year is that that enthusiasm is starting to pick up, and we're finding that the pre-sales are much stronger in Q4 than they were in Q3. We think moving into FY 2023, we'll have improved that position a lot and hopefully get back to that benchmark of breaking even within six weeks.
All right, cool. I'll let someone else ask a question.
Thank you. We have next question from the line of Jack Dunn with Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hi, Harry and Kym. Can you hear me okay?
Yeah, we can.
Perfect. Thanks for taking my questions. Just the first one, I was wondering if you can talk us through the 2025 target of 100 corporate-owned locations. Is this still the target? If so, what are the plans to ramp up to get there?
Yeah, that is still our target. Obviously, you know, COVID got in the way a little bit. That target was based on opening circa 17 locations, opening or acquiring 17 locations a quarter, so 68 a year. Over the last three years, we've averaged about 41, 42 locations a year. We're slightly behind that. This year, and based on the growth that we've seen in the second half of last financial year, we're hoping to exceed that 40, opening club numbers, opening or acquired club numbers.
Okay.
We're still targeting that number. We may be, you know, 6 months or 12 months late in that, but we are still targeting that number, and it is based. We see the growth mostly in the boutiques to achieve that number.
Jack, it's also worth mentioning that, you know, a club is not a club as such. We're looking at, for example, one of the acquisitions in the WA market is, like, AUD 500,000 worth of EBITDA a year, and yet the lowest one is about AUD 130,000-AUD 140,000 EBITDA a year. You know, one club is not necessarily one club. I guess it's more about, you know, an EBITDA target at some point in the future on top of, you know, as a backdrop, I guess number of clubs on an average EBITDA basis is kind of how we set that standard a year ago.
You know, either way, we're still aiming towards that, but to us, it's the EBITDA component, which is slightly more important than simply the number of clubs statistic.
Yeah, perfect. Thanks for that. I might just stay with the WA market then. Are you able to talk to how you're seeing sort of the utilization rate since you've moved in there? Understanding it's a new market and sort of always a slower uptake to start, but have you been surprised by how the WA market's responded?
Yeah. Our entry into WA was via Plus Fitness acquisitions. These were existing clubs.
Yep.
We acquired seven clubs prior to the end of financial year, but we now own eight. We're seeing the same thing we see on you know the eastern side of Australia, seeing good retention. We've got a large club there in Alkimos that does really well. Over 2,000 members in a Plus Fitness, which is very large. Yeah, we're just seeing the same things there 'cause these are established clubs that we've purchased to sort of enter that market.
Okay. Perfect. Thanks for that. And then just on the your members, I wonder if you could provide some color on the types of members making up the 160,000 from owned locations, just in terms of who are on biweekly contracts versus annual, how many are multi-club and sort of the average age of the members?
I think it's 83%-84% of our members are on 14-day recurring direct debit. The remainder of the members are not necessarily on annual. They're, for example, corporate members where we invoice the business or the government department, even some of them. In terms of paying annually, you can pay annually, but there's no discount to do so. It's simply you know 52 times the weekly rate. It's not an attractive thing to do. We just account for that as a credit against the member's account and we draw down on that to include it in revenue as the month passes. There's no attractiveness for a member to pay up front for 12 months.
Essentially, we consider most of it either monthly or 14-day direct debit.
In terms of the age. Yeah.
You go. Sorry. Yeah.
In terms of the age, the average age of our owned member portfolio is 31 years of age.
Yep.
It's pretty much evenly split, male, female.
How many are on multi-club memberships?
Yeah. Multi-club memberships used to account for over 50% of our membership when we were predominantly ACT-based because you know you could reach sites really easily. As we've expanded into other areas like New South Wales that number has started to drop purely because you know in the ACT you can you know if a site is 6 or 7 km away you can reach that in five minutes. In New South Wales if you're in you know CBD or metro area 5 km away could be a 25-minute drive. It's less attractive as a hub and spoke in New South Wales. You have to look at sort of individual markets. Like Albury-Wodonga which is you know we have four sites in Albury-Wodonga makes it attractive for...
We have a higher yielding, you know, multi-club type membership there. ACT, we still have a high, but when you're sort of sitting in, you know, Sydney metro, it's a lower number. I think the thing to watch is the average revenue per member per week. You know, that's been increasing. And obviously as multi-club members come on, that assists. In the brands and segment update that we're not presenting today, if you look at the GROUNDUP page, you'll see that the average weekly GROUNDUP rate is AUD 50 a week. And as we continue to open up more of those locations, that will also drive up the average revenue per week. And they're not necessarily multi-club members, but they just pay more.
All right. Perfect. Thank you. I'll just ask one more then I'll jump back in the queue. Just wondering if you could provide us with a bit of a trading update or trading performance for the first six weeks of the year. More particularly, have you noticed any change in, say, churn, from the changing economic environment from, say, rising interest rates and falling consumer sentiment? How is the marketing, you know, the Netflix approach with 14 days free, is that having sort of the same traction as it did in second half 2022? Thanks.
As at June, obviously, the numbers are published in this presentation. You've seen record members sitting at 159.5 thousand or rounding up to 160, including the pre-sales. As at today, for example, we're sitting at just over 162,000 members, so we've grown another 2,000 members in the first six weeks of the year. I expect our average revenue per member will also have gone up, so we've got a yield and volume increase across the first six weeks. The yield will go up simply because the end of financial year sale, which we ran, which incorporated about 3-3.5 thousand new members, will start to pay in this week's major direct debit, which is going through today.
We would expect to see revenues in July, or certainly we know the revenues in July exceeded those in June, and again, we would expect it to exceed again in August. As far as the consumer sentiment is concerned, we haven't noticed anything yet. I mean, regardless, this is a lifestyle spend for members, not a discretionary spend anymore. I don't know about you, but we've got at our home Stan, Netflix, Amazon, you know, Paramount+, all the rest of it. But they would probably be the first to go in our household rather than the gym membership, you know, which at the moment is averaging less than AUD 15 a week. From that perspective, we haven't seen it yet. We.
I'm not sure how the remainder of the economy is going as far as discretionary services are concerned, but we're not seeing it certainly in our membership base at any point yet.
All right. Perfect. Thanks. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you.
Thank you. We have next question from the line of Daniel Ireland with Petra Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, Harry. Hi, Kym. First of all, well done on the result. Just in terms of the acquisitions that you're looking to make potentially in the future, just wanted to get a bit more color around the Plus businesses that you can potentially acquire. I understand that you have first right of refusal there. Are you seeing that pipeline build? And also are the pricing expectations from gym operators within your guidance of the 2.5-3 times EBITDA? Thanks.
Yeah, thanks, Daniel. The Plus Fitness acquisition, as we make more acquisitions of Plus, then, you know, the word gets around. I think, you know, if a franchisee wants to sell, they're gonna put it on the market. I don't think they think, you know, we're their definite buyer because we don't take every opportunity. I'd say we probably exercise our rights on about 60%-70% of opportunities, and we let others go through to be sold in the open market.
In terms of the expectation, look, you know, some that we let go through to the open market sell for more than what we pay because, you know, you've got a franchisee, and there might be the neighboring location, and it's worthwhile paying a premium for that franchisee to buy that, you know, neighboring territory off a different franchisee, so they'll pay a premium over us. We see enough opportunities, so we don't need to pay a premium. As I mentioned before, we're actually offering two offers to franchisees, either straight cash or cash and some scrip to get back up to the three times. If it's straight cash, then it's lower, you know, around the 2.5 times range. It really comes down to, you know, what the vendor wants.
If they just want straight out, they might take the cash and run. Otherwise, you know, they'll take a higher price, take some scrip, a high accumulated price, take some scrip and go from there. Does that answer your question?
It does, yeah. Thanks. Just on Viva Pay, 'cause you did mention it in this presentation. You're expecting the migration of that in early calendar year 2023. We're not expecting much in the way of contribution then, or should we more look towards 2024 for Plus Fitness to the Viva Pay contribution coming through?
We anticipate we'll get, approximately six months worth of contribution 'cause it's instant. As soon as it switches, it's instant. We need to get the timing right. There's a whole process of, you know, finalizing the, CRM, essentially training all the, staff, and the new franchisees up in the new CRM, migrating the data, introducing the access controls because we'll be introducing like the app access to the Plus network, and then switching it all on. Our aim is, for example, over the quiet period, you know, in late December, when everyone's Christmas shopping and going to Christmas parties and things to do sort of that migration then, and then have it ready for January.
That's what we're sort of aiming for because as we get into September, October, we start to hit sort of peak time, and we don't wanna do interruptions in there. We're just trying to time it around that. I expect we'll see six months worth of contribution hitting there.
Okay. Thanks very much.
This one issue. Yeah.
Thank you. We have next question from the line of Jack Dunn with Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Perfect. Thanks. Just, yeah, just one last one. Just in terms of the medium to long-term plans for your franchisees brands and the Plus business, Rebalance, hiit republic, do you guys have any sort of target numbers of locations for each brand that you're sort of working towards or sort of pretty flexible?
We have target numbers internally. We don't want to publish those at the moment. We just think the growth is in those two. You know, we don't really want to publish those numbers as yet. We'll publish more details of that, including costs of the franchise and everything closer to the end of the year.
All right. Perfect. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. We have next question from the line of Dan Stein with OC Funds Management. Please go ahead.
Hi, Harry. How are you going?
Good, Dan.
Just wondering, can you just give us a bit more color on the clubs, the greenfields coming? Just, on the back of that last question, I think you mentioned doing a few more hiit republics and GROUNDUP. Can you just give us a bit more color on the 12 you've got?
Yeah. If you look at the bi-monthly report that we issued a week ago, that actually has a summary, got a page in there which says, you know, what brands are coming and which states they're in. There's detail in that. I don't have that in front of me right now. Do you want me to pull that up or you'll look it up?
No, that's okay. I can grab that. Just noticed one of your peers during the week sort of mentioned that, the government sort of introduced restricted policies in the last quarter that resulted in a 27% decrease in visits. Did you happen to see that at all in hiit republic?
No, we haven't seen that at all across our whole portfolio. I know the peer that you're referring to, and they operate a model which has a lot less members. When they lose a percentage of members, they have a lot less visits, significantly. We haven't seen that at all. We publish in the appendix in this document our visitations. You can see they were at record 1.7 million for June. We're taking a member swiping in our network every 1.5 seconds of the day. The numbers that we're seeing on visitations in July are actually more than 1.7 million. They continue to increase.
The average is just under 60,000 visits a day, and we've got days in July and August that have hit 70,000 visits into our network. We're not seeing that at all.
No, that's helpful. Good to hear. Just wondering as well, looks like you're still adding members net and just interested in the competitive landscape and whether you're seeing more promotions or any change in intensity there? Thanks.
We're promoting the same way we've always promoted. We do snap promotions generally. Three days, you know, long weekend or three days here, four days here. That's what's worked for us. You know, there was a mention earlier about a 14-day Netflix approach. We do a 14-day free trial for pre-sale clubs. We don't do that for existing, you know, or mature clubs. We just do snap sales. For example, in August, we ran a snap sale for three days, and before the end of August, we'll run another snap sale for three days, generally promoted on social media, and works really well.
Kym mentioned in his presentation in June, we did a promotion for the last three days of the end of financial year and signed up 3,000 members online. That promotion cost us about AUD 60 thousand in online advertising, Instagram, Facebook, Google Ads and things like that. You know, with 3,000 members, you know, even if we only keep 70% of those members, that's over AUD 2 million of annualized revenue for a AUD 60,000 cost. That's helped to increase utilization and, you know, will benefit in August onwards.
Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Dan.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I'd now like to hand the conference back over to Mr. Konstantinou for closing remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thanks, everyone, for listening in and watching the webcast. Kym and I are available if you'd like to have a one-on-one. We've already booked some of those over the next week or so. If you have any questions after going through the accounts or the presentation, we are available. Thanks to everyone for their support over the last year, and we look forward to smashing FY 2023. Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your line.